0 comment Monday, October 27, 2014 | admin
In a recent blog entry, titled In their words, I simply posted a number of quotes from various individuals, all of which spelled out the rationalizations for internationalism, and for this 'global governance' agenda which is being forced on us. The very last quote in that post was by Samuel Zane Batten, from a work of his called The New World Order.
Batten was rather an interesting character; he was not the originator of the ideas he promoted in the New World Order; he was merely writing on a theme which was being sounded from various quarters, even as early as the latter part of the 19th century when he wrote some of his works.
It is notable that in his work ''If America Fail', he delineates the idea of America as 'proposition nation', which was an idea which was already in play. If the country had deemed it useful to admit millions of people of disparate origins, as was the case since the mid-19th century, then it was necessary to remake the image of America to accommodate and rationalize the presence of so many aliens. So the 'proposition nation' and Israel Zangwill's ''melting pot'' were pressed into service as a justification for altering this country.
Batten, in If America Fail, says
''America is not a country merely, not primarily a form of government. America is a gospel, an ideal, The Mission of America a faith, a spirit, a state of heart, a set of principles, a trinity of ideas, an interpretation of the kingdom of God, the far-off goal of history.''
At this point, Batten addresses the question of why nations decline and fall. His recounting of the cycle of nations recalls the work of Sir John Glubb about which I posted recently.
''There are causes and conditions which make nations great and strong; and there are conditions and causes which weaken and destroy nations. What are the causes which have destroyed nations in the past? This question is not easy to answer for the reason that the records are incomplete. Many nations have perished, leaving only a name and a memory. Of some of these nations and peoples we have no written record; all that remains are a few fragments like the fossils of some long-perished mastodon.''The first cause he cites is prosperity, or luxury.
''There is another aspect of this question which we may notice. The growth of luxury always leads to social vices which rot the moral fiber of a nation and cause national decay. For one thing the blight of luxury is felt earliest and most fatally in the home. In the early history of Rome the family life was held in high honor, the marriage bond was respected, and for five centuries divorce was unknown in the Roman world. But the time came when all this was changed.
Under the Empire marriage came to be regarded with disfavor and disdain. Women, as Seneca says, married in order that they might be divorced; and were divorced in order that they might marry. There were noble Roman matrons, he tells us, who counted the years not by the consuls but by the number of their husbands. As might be expected, to have a family was regarded as a misfortune, and all kinds of methods were used to prevent the birth of children. The rich and aristocratic, intent only on their own pleasure and gratification, chafed under the restraints of marriage and grew reluctant to rear children. The poor and servile classes, imitating their superiors, became unwilling to marry and found a family. This suggests the next cause.
The time was when men divided the race into two great classes, the superior, made up of the cultured and the prosperous, and the inferior, made up of the uncultured and the slow-witted. It has been assumed that these two classes possessed very different powers and capacities, that the so-called superior were made of finer clay than these so-called inferior persons. The anthropologist and sociologist of our time no longer accept any such classification as this. In fact the scientist seriously maintains that there is as much real capacity in one race as in another.''
In this area of his thinking, Batten seems to be a curious ''missing link'' between the old, race-conscious thought and the new, increasingly egalitarian, one-world mindset. He wrote a good deal about the Anglo-Saxon origins of this country in some of his works, praising the accomplishments of the founding stock. He acknowledges differences among nations and races of people, but he then reassures us that the races are equal in capacity.
''It is true that the characteristics of one may differ greatly from another; but this is a question of aptitude and not of capacity. Further than this, the sociologist seriously maintains that capacity is practically the same in all classes of people; that there is as much real capacity in what we call the submerged tenth, as in the emerged tenth. It is not a question of capacity but of opportunity.
We believe in the value of man as man; we believe also in what is called the democracy of birth and the essential equality of all men. But the fact remains that men do not possess the same traits and qualities; and further, some qualities and characteristics make for national progress and strength, while certain other qualities and strains make against national progress and vigor. These qualities are not abstract or impersonal, but are always incarnated in persons.
There are persons possessed of unusual forethought, great vigor of mind and body, with initiative and self-control. We shall not call those who do not possess these qualities inferior classes and lesser breeds; but we do say that these are superior qualities so far as the race is concerned; and we do say that no people can be great, progressive, strong, enduring, unless it develops and contains a large number of persons possessing these qualities.
A people rises or falls, it grows or declines, as the proportion of people possessing these qualities increases or decreases. We may illustrate this principle from the experience of Greece and Rome. In ancient Greece there was a time when the family was honored and men and women considered it an honor to raise children. Then Greece advanced to the front rank and rose to the highest greatness. But with prosperity came luxury, and with luxury came a love of pleasure and a softness of temper. In the patrician families the birth-rate declined, and the race was drained of its finest qualities.''
Here, he touches on the theme of declining birth rates as a sign, if not a cause, of the fall of nations.
''The same process is seen in Rome with hardly a change of terms. The greatness of old Rome was built upon the family; so long as the family remained intact and it was an honor to rear children, Rome ruled the world and was invincible. But as the family declined and patricians no longer were willing to bear the burden of children, the foundations of the Empire were undermined and the beginning of the end had come.
In vain did Greek philosophers construct in imagination ideal states where only the best members should have offspring to be supported and reared by the public wisdom and at the public cost. In vain did Roman emperors bestow special privileges on fathers of three children or more. The duties and responsibilities of family life fell into disfavor among many of the best men and the ablest and most attractive women. The stock deteriorated and the fruits of centuries of magnificent civilization were cast away.
The conclusion is certain; the decline of a nation is due in large part to the fact that the proportion of the people with certain necessary superior qualities decreased, and the proportion of people without these necessary survival qualities increased.
It is not possible here to consider all of the causes that have produced these changes and have brought a decline of the better strains. The time was when men explained it, or thought they had explained it, by saying that the stock ran out and the people died of old age. But these things are themselves results and do not touch the causes; in fact they are the very things to be explained.''
[Emphasis mine.]
It is interesting that he uses terms like ''the better strains'' and ''superior qualities.'' Of course he would be shouted down as a bigot and an elitist and a hater if he used such loaded terms today. Although he carefully avoids calling certain people, or groups of people superior, he does allow that some possess ''superior qualities'', although one might take away the impression that he sees these ''superior qualities'' randomly distributed across human populations, and this is not evident according to our common sense and our powers of observation.
At this point, he uses the familiar argument that any differences in circumstances or ability are due to 'social and economic causes.'
''Today it has become very evident that the causes of these changes are largely economic and social. First, note the economic cause of race decline. In every nation, soon or late, as we have seen, there has arisen the problem of land monopoly. The land fell into the hands of a few; the soil was over-worked; the cost of living rose higher and higher; the people left the farms and crowded into the cities; the social pressure became intense; the more prosperous and luxurious classes were unwilling to bear the trouble of raising children; the social pressure greatly reduced the birth-rate among the middle classes.
As a consequence the less provident, the more shiftless classes, taking no thought for tomorrow, following impulse only, were the only people that produced many children. In this way the vigor and stamina of the nation were reduced, and a steady national decline began. That is to say, the economic pressure meant a proportionate decrease in the more vigorous, thoughtful, successful, and progressive stock, and a proportionate increase in the less provident, less thoughtful, less self-controlled and successful people.''
It sounds very much like he is making eugenic arguments. Nowadays, most 'conservatives' have knee-jerk response to the idea of eugenics, as if it is not simply common sense to choose a mate of sound health and character, and to want our children to do likewise. The ''conservatives'' who jeer at eugenics (because it conjures up associations with Margaret Sanger and Hitler) can't actually believe dysgenics is preferable. But much of the reproduction in our day is in fact dysgenic, in exactly the way that Batten says in the following paragraphs:
''The other cause is more social and personal. The prosperous and successful classes were unwilling to bear the burden and strain of a family, and so they ceased to have their proportion of children. In all times one fact appears with monotonous iteration: In the so-called upper classes, the nobility, the people of culture and ability, there has been a decline in the birth-rate and number of children. In this way there was a decrease in the number of forceful personalities, men of foresight and ability, men of self-control and self-reliance. This then is the result of it all: With the decreasing number of children in the more successful, more restrained classes, and the increasing number of children in less successful and more shiftless classes, there has followed a decline in the national strength and cohesion.
However powerful a society may seem to be, it is doomed if it so organizes itself as to breed the wrong sort of people and to favor the survival of the least desirable at the expense of the more valuable. Any society that does these things is a failure � a failure in the degree in which these results are attained.
No people can prosper and grow and endure where the less vigorous and less successful outpropagate the more vigorous and more successful. Historians and sociologists have named many causes, poHtical and economic, to explain the decadence of nations. Slavery, civil war, foreign conquest, bloated armaments, lust of gold, loss of martial spirit, the decay of religion, the decline of the national strength, these have all been summoned to ac- count for their fall. But beyond all, more insidious than all, more fatal than any, in large part the cause of all other causes, is a wrongly selected birth-rate leading to the proportionate decline of the more thrifty and stronger stock and the proportionate increase of the more thriftless and weaker strains.
We may state the law of national progress or decline in the following terms: If from any cause there be a proportionate decrease in the number of people with marked qualities of thrift, vigor, initiative, and ability, and a proportionate increase of the people with the traits of shiftlessness and weakness, there follows an inevitable decline of the national life. If by economic and social conditions children be made too heavy a burden on the more desirable elements of the population, there is a danger that the thrifty and the far-seeing members of the community will postpone marriage, and when married restrict the number of their offspring. Thus while the weak and careless elements grow at an increasing rate, the good stocks of the people check their rate of growth or even diminish in number, and the selective deterioration of the race is hastened in two ways.''
In our age of massive migrations of peoples from the Third World, we see exactly what he describes in action. It's uncomfortable for many people to acknowledge this because there is just no denying that the 'careless elements' are in many cases immigrants and those of the Groups Who Must Not Be Criticized.
Batten's viewpoints, in many cases, would be condemned today for their political incorrectness, but in the long run, he was very much a part of the move towards the multiracial/multicultural, ecumenical, egalitarian One World system.
In fact he was one of the Founding Members of a group called the Brotherhood of the Kingdom, which more or less developed what Christians now refer to as the Social Gospel movement. That movement was in great part a forerunner of the Civil Rights revolution, which has now brought us to our present situation.
Again, this is another example of how the ideas that shaped our present dystopian world order started long, long before the 1960s. It all came out in the open then, whereas it had bubbled beneath the surface for many decades prior to that fateful era.
Batten was rather an interesting character; he was not the originator of the ideas he promoted in the New World Order; he was merely writing on a theme which was being sounded from various quarters, even as early as the latter part of the 19th century when he wrote some of his works.
It is notable that in his work ''If America Fail', he delineates the idea of America as 'proposition nation', which was an idea which was already in play. If the country had deemed it useful to admit millions of people of disparate origins, as was the case since the mid-19th century, then it was necessary to remake the image of America to accommodate and rationalize the presence of so many aliens. So the 'proposition nation' and Israel Zangwill's ''melting pot'' were pressed into service as a justification for altering this country.
Batten, in If America Fail, says
''America is not a country merely, not primarily a form of government. America is a gospel, an ideal, The Mission of America a faith, a spirit, a state of heart, a set of principles, a trinity of ideas, an interpretation of the kingdom of God, the far-off goal of history.''
At this point, Batten addresses the question of why nations decline and fall. His recounting of the cycle of nations recalls the work of Sir John Glubb about which I posted recently.
''There are causes and conditions which make nations great and strong; and there are conditions and causes which weaken and destroy nations. What are the causes which have destroyed nations in the past? This question is not easy to answer for the reason that the records are incomplete. Many nations have perished, leaving only a name and a memory. Of some of these nations and peoples we have no written record; all that remains are a few fragments like the fossils of some long-perished mastodon.''The first cause he cites is prosperity, or luxury.
''There is another aspect of this question which we may notice. The growth of luxury always leads to social vices which rot the moral fiber of a nation and cause national decay. For one thing the blight of luxury is felt earliest and most fatally in the home. In the early history of Rome the family life was held in high honor, the marriage bond was respected, and for five centuries divorce was unknown in the Roman world. But the time came when all this was changed.
Under the Empire marriage came to be regarded with disfavor and disdain. Women, as Seneca says, married in order that they might be divorced; and were divorced in order that they might marry. There were noble Roman matrons, he tells us, who counted the years not by the consuls but by the number of their husbands. As might be expected, to have a family was regarded as a misfortune, and all kinds of methods were used to prevent the birth of children. The rich and aristocratic, intent only on their own pleasure and gratification, chafed under the restraints of marriage and grew reluctant to rear children. The poor and servile classes, imitating their superiors, became unwilling to marry and found a family. This suggests the next cause.
The time was when men divided the race into two great classes, the superior, made up of the cultured and the prosperous, and the inferior, made up of the uncultured and the slow-witted. It has been assumed that these two classes possessed very different powers and capacities, that the so-called superior were made of finer clay than these so-called inferior persons. The anthropologist and sociologist of our time no longer accept any such classification as this. In fact the scientist seriously maintains that there is as much real capacity in one race as in another.''
In this area of his thinking, Batten seems to be a curious ''missing link'' between the old, race-conscious thought and the new, increasingly egalitarian, one-world mindset. He wrote a good deal about the Anglo-Saxon origins of this country in some of his works, praising the accomplishments of the founding stock. He acknowledges differences among nations and races of people, but he then reassures us that the races are equal in capacity.
''It is true that the characteristics of one may differ greatly from another; but this is a question of aptitude and not of capacity. Further than this, the sociologist seriously maintains that capacity is practically the same in all classes of people; that there is as much real capacity in what we call the submerged tenth, as in the emerged tenth. It is not a question of capacity but of opportunity.
We believe in the value of man as man; we believe also in what is called the democracy of birth and the essential equality of all men. But the fact remains that men do not possess the same traits and qualities; and further, some qualities and characteristics make for national progress and strength, while certain other qualities and strains make against national progress and vigor. These qualities are not abstract or impersonal, but are always incarnated in persons.
There are persons possessed of unusual forethought, great vigor of mind and body, with initiative and self-control. We shall not call those who do not possess these qualities inferior classes and lesser breeds; but we do say that these are superior qualities so far as the race is concerned; and we do say that no people can be great, progressive, strong, enduring, unless it develops and contains a large number of persons possessing these qualities.
A people rises or falls, it grows or declines, as the proportion of people possessing these qualities increases or decreases. We may illustrate this principle from the experience of Greece and Rome. In ancient Greece there was a time when the family was honored and men and women considered it an honor to raise children. Then Greece advanced to the front rank and rose to the highest greatness. But with prosperity came luxury, and with luxury came a love of pleasure and a softness of temper. In the patrician families the birth-rate declined, and the race was drained of its finest qualities.''
Here, he touches on the theme of declining birth rates as a sign, if not a cause, of the fall of nations.
''The same process is seen in Rome with hardly a change of terms. The greatness of old Rome was built upon the family; so long as the family remained intact and it was an honor to rear children, Rome ruled the world and was invincible. But as the family declined and patricians no longer were willing to bear the burden of children, the foundations of the Empire were undermined and the beginning of the end had come.
In vain did Greek philosophers construct in imagination ideal states where only the best members should have offspring to be supported and reared by the public wisdom and at the public cost. In vain did Roman emperors bestow special privileges on fathers of three children or more. The duties and responsibilities of family life fell into disfavor among many of the best men and the ablest and most attractive women. The stock deteriorated and the fruits of centuries of magnificent civilization were cast away.
The conclusion is certain; the decline of a nation is due in large part to the fact that the proportion of the people with certain necessary superior qualities decreased, and the proportion of people without these necessary survival qualities increased.
It is not possible here to consider all of the causes that have produced these changes and have brought a decline of the better strains. The time was when men explained it, or thought they had explained it, by saying that the stock ran out and the people died of old age. But these things are themselves results and do not touch the causes; in fact they are the very things to be explained.''
[Emphasis mine.]
It is interesting that he uses terms like ''the better strains'' and ''superior qualities.'' Of course he would be shouted down as a bigot and an elitist and a hater if he used such loaded terms today. Although he carefully avoids calling certain people, or groups of people superior, he does allow that some possess ''superior qualities'', although one might take away the impression that he sees these ''superior qualities'' randomly distributed across human populations, and this is not evident according to our common sense and our powers of observation.
At this point, he uses the familiar argument that any differences in circumstances or ability are due to 'social and economic causes.'
''Today it has become very evident that the causes of these changes are largely economic and social. First, note the economic cause of race decline. In every nation, soon or late, as we have seen, there has arisen the problem of land monopoly. The land fell into the hands of a few; the soil was over-worked; the cost of living rose higher and higher; the people left the farms and crowded into the cities; the social pressure became intense; the more prosperous and luxurious classes were unwilling to bear the trouble of raising children; the social pressure greatly reduced the birth-rate among the middle classes.
As a consequence the less provident, the more shiftless classes, taking no thought for tomorrow, following impulse only, were the only people that produced many children. In this way the vigor and stamina of the nation were reduced, and a steady national decline began. That is to say, the economic pressure meant a proportionate decrease in the more vigorous, thoughtful, successful, and progressive stock, and a proportionate increase in the less provident, less thoughtful, less self-controlled and successful people.''
It sounds very much like he is making eugenic arguments. Nowadays, most 'conservatives' have knee-jerk response to the idea of eugenics, as if it is not simply common sense to choose a mate of sound health and character, and to want our children to do likewise. The ''conservatives'' who jeer at eugenics (because it conjures up associations with Margaret Sanger and Hitler) can't actually believe dysgenics is preferable. But much of the reproduction in our day is in fact dysgenic, in exactly the way that Batten says in the following paragraphs:
''The other cause is more social and personal. The prosperous and successful classes were unwilling to bear the burden and strain of a family, and so they ceased to have their proportion of children. In all times one fact appears with monotonous iteration: In the so-called upper classes, the nobility, the people of culture and ability, there has been a decline in the birth-rate and number of children. In this way there was a decrease in the number of forceful personalities, men of foresight and ability, men of self-control and self-reliance. This then is the result of it all: With the decreasing number of children in the more successful, more restrained classes, and the increasing number of children in less successful and more shiftless classes, there has followed a decline in the national strength and cohesion.
However powerful a society may seem to be, it is doomed if it so organizes itself as to breed the wrong sort of people and to favor the survival of the least desirable at the expense of the more valuable. Any society that does these things is a failure � a failure in the degree in which these results are attained.
No people can prosper and grow and endure where the less vigorous and less successful outpropagate the more vigorous and more successful. Historians and sociologists have named many causes, poHtical and economic, to explain the decadence of nations. Slavery, civil war, foreign conquest, bloated armaments, lust of gold, loss of martial spirit, the decay of religion, the decline of the national strength, these have all been summoned to ac- count for their fall. But beyond all, more insidious than all, more fatal than any, in large part the cause of all other causes, is a wrongly selected birth-rate leading to the proportionate decline of the more thrifty and stronger stock and the proportionate increase of the more thriftless and weaker strains.
We may state the law of national progress or decline in the following terms: If from any cause there be a proportionate decrease in the number of people with marked qualities of thrift, vigor, initiative, and ability, and a proportionate increase of the people with the traits of shiftlessness and weakness, there follows an inevitable decline of the national life. If by economic and social conditions children be made too heavy a burden on the more desirable elements of the population, there is a danger that the thrifty and the far-seeing members of the community will postpone marriage, and when married restrict the number of their offspring. Thus while the weak and careless elements grow at an increasing rate, the good stocks of the people check their rate of growth or even diminish in number, and the selective deterioration of the race is hastened in two ways.''
In our age of massive migrations of peoples from the Third World, we see exactly what he describes in action. It's uncomfortable for many people to acknowledge this because there is just no denying that the 'careless elements' are in many cases immigrants and those of the Groups Who Must Not Be Criticized.
Batten's viewpoints, in many cases, would be condemned today for their political incorrectness, but in the long run, he was very much a part of the move towards the multiracial/multicultural, ecumenical, egalitarian One World system.
In fact he was one of the Founding Members of a group called the Brotherhood of the Kingdom, which more or less developed what Christians now refer to as the Social Gospel movement. That movement was in great part a forerunner of the Civil Rights revolution, which has now brought us to our present situation.
Again, this is another example of how the ideas that shaped our present dystopian world order started long, long before the 1960s. It all came out in the open then, whereas it had bubbled beneath the surface for many decades prior to that fateful era.
Labels: Creeping Liberalism, Egalitarianism, Globalism, Multiculturalism, National Character, One World
0 comment Sunday, June 22, 2014 | admin
Chuck Baldwin reflects on the Alamo, on this anniversary of its fall in 1836. He writes about the character of the men who died defending the Alamo, men like Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William Barret Travis.
He notes that Travis was a mere 23 years old when he met his death, and as you see by the letter he wrote before he was killed at the Alamo, Travis was a man of maturity and character, despite his youth. Of course, until very recent times, 23 was very much considered a man, while today, a male at 23 is often referred to as a ''kid'' or a boy or a youth. We no longer expect maturity of 23-year-olds. Maybe that is one of the reasons why we seem to be lacking leaders now; we delay adulthood until what used to be considered early middle age.
But be that as it may, the defenders of the Alamo were extraordinary men. They should be role models for our youth, but given the feminizing of our society, and the downplaying of the warrior ethic and masculinity in general, I suspect they are not held up, today, as men to be emulated, as in past eras.
Baldwin's piece is good, but I have one issue with it, and it's a fairly major point of difference. He says that the Alamo defenders fought and died for freedom.
''The brave men at the Alamo labored under the belief that America (and Texas) really was "the land of the free and the home of the brave." They believed God was on their side and that the freedom of future generations depended on their courage and resolve. They further believed their posterity would remember their sacrifice as an act of love and devotion. It all looks pale now.
By today�s standards, the gallant men of the Alamo appear rather foolish. After all, they had no chance of winning�none. However, the call for pragmatism and practicality was never sounded. Instead, they answered the clarion call, "Victory or death!"
Please try to remember the heroes of the Alamo as you watch our gutless political and religious leaders surrender to globalism, corporatism, and political correctness. Try to recall the time in this country when ordinary men and women had the courage of their convictions and were willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom and independence.''
He says that 'liberty and independence' was what motivated the men at Lexington and Concord, too. He says that they died for these principles.
Firstly, I would say that the Alamo represented a different struggle, to some extent, than that of the American Revolution.
The Texas colonists came to Texas at the invitation of a foreign government, the Mexican government. They were entering a foreign land, and they knew that the Mexicans were a people of a very different background, culture, language, and religion. They knew that the heritage of freedom in the American sense was not part of Mexico's system of governance.
The American Revolution was not the same situation at all; the American colonists knew they were of the same blood as their English rulers; it was not a case of being dominated by a foreign people with a different understanding of ''rights'' or freedoms, as with Mexico. They did not see the English authorities as alien peoples; why would they? They were all of the same stock, with the exception of course of the Americans of Dutch descent or Swedish descent, who were a distinct minority. The American colonists claimed 'the rights of Englishmen'.
Somehow, recent generations of students seem to have the idea that the colonists thought of the English as alien oppressors, which was not so. The quarrel was a family quarrel, with the differences being over ideas like 'taxation without representation'. So to that extent, the American Revolution was about ideas or principles, but the Alamo was about a distinct people (the Anglo-Protestant American colonists) being under the rule of a very different people, and deprived of their rights as they understood them. There was an element of a culture clash, even if you don't want to admit a racial aspect, to the Texas independence movement.
I personally don't think that many men (or women) will be willing to die for abstract, disembodied principles like 'freedom' or 'liberty'. I think what it comes down to is that men will fight and even die for home, hearth, land, and ultimately, their kin, their people. I think that's true down through the ages, even when there are abstract principles invoked. And men will die for their faith, if that faith is genuine and strong enough.
And that is the crucial issue now; how many people will risk all to fight for abstractions like the 'proposition nation' with its 'freedom and liberty' shibboleths? Not many, I would say, but people will fight or risk harm to protect their families, homes, lands, and their faith.
Since our country has been turned into a 'proposition nation', open to one and all, standing for no particular way of life except 'freedom and equality', then it is no wonder that many people's loyalties have become attenuated. That may be the reason why ''the best lack all conviction'' these days, because why fight for an abstract notion or for a system of government or a government apparatus in a far-off city? What counts to most red-blooded people is their homes, property, friends, family. It's the people (plus the place) which is home to us. That's what we will defend. Anything else is just words on paper.
I have a few kinsmen who died at the Alamo. I am certain that they died in defense not of abstractions, but in defense of their right to live on their land among their people, practicing their faith, on their terms, self-determining. The issue of their right to bear arms was what sparked the ultimate struggle; the Mexican government tried to disarm them, and then the fight began.
Many of today's politically corrected people don't know why old Americans were so attached to their right to bear arms. It is with those arms that a man can secure and protect his home, his land, his family against outlawry and against a despotic government. A disarmed people is an enslaved people. They knew that.
But ultimately, both the Texans and the Revolutionary patriots wanted the right to live peaceably ''under his own vine and fig tree'' as self-determining people, among like neighbors. That is a primal affinity for most healthy people. We can't make these conflicts into a war for abstractions; it was about flesh-and-blood bonds.
And if one believes that they primarily wanted to secure their political rights, what better way to guarantee them than to live among your own people, who share common standards and ideals about how people treat one another, and about just what rights we have as individuals and collectively?
We are told by the open borders zealots that all the millions who are arriving in our country every year are coming because they want ''freedom and liberty''. But it is evident to anybody with eyes and sense that what many of the immigrants consider 'freedom' is not our idea of freedom. What they consider their 'rights' are not necessarily what we as a people have agreed to be our rights. And their assumed 'rights' come into conflict with ours, and the conflicts are insoluble in some cases.
No, our forebears did not fight or die for abstractions and fine-sounding words on parchment; they died for the right to be self-determining, to live and worship as suited them and their ancestors, and (they hoped) their posterity.
It's all about the people, the flesh-and-blood people.
He notes that Travis was a mere 23 years old when he met his death, and as you see by the letter he wrote before he was killed at the Alamo, Travis was a man of maturity and character, despite his youth. Of course, until very recent times, 23 was very much considered a man, while today, a male at 23 is often referred to as a ''kid'' or a boy or a youth. We no longer expect maturity of 23-year-olds. Maybe that is one of the reasons why we seem to be lacking leaders now; we delay adulthood until what used to be considered early middle age.
But be that as it may, the defenders of the Alamo were extraordinary men. They should be role models for our youth, but given the feminizing of our society, and the downplaying of the warrior ethic and masculinity in general, I suspect they are not held up, today, as men to be emulated, as in past eras.
Baldwin's piece is good, but I have one issue with it, and it's a fairly major point of difference. He says that the Alamo defenders fought and died for freedom.
''The brave men at the Alamo labored under the belief that America (and Texas) really was "the land of the free and the home of the brave." They believed God was on their side and that the freedom of future generations depended on their courage and resolve. They further believed their posterity would remember their sacrifice as an act of love and devotion. It all looks pale now.
By today�s standards, the gallant men of the Alamo appear rather foolish. After all, they had no chance of winning�none. However, the call for pragmatism and practicality was never sounded. Instead, they answered the clarion call, "Victory or death!"
Please try to remember the heroes of the Alamo as you watch our gutless political and religious leaders surrender to globalism, corporatism, and political correctness. Try to recall the time in this country when ordinary men and women had the courage of their convictions and were willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom and independence.''
He says that 'liberty and independence' was what motivated the men at Lexington and Concord, too. He says that they died for these principles.
Firstly, I would say that the Alamo represented a different struggle, to some extent, than that of the American Revolution.
The Texas colonists came to Texas at the invitation of a foreign government, the Mexican government. They were entering a foreign land, and they knew that the Mexicans were a people of a very different background, culture, language, and religion. They knew that the heritage of freedom in the American sense was not part of Mexico's system of governance.
The American Revolution was not the same situation at all; the American colonists knew they were of the same blood as their English rulers; it was not a case of being dominated by a foreign people with a different understanding of ''rights'' or freedoms, as with Mexico. They did not see the English authorities as alien peoples; why would they? They were all of the same stock, with the exception of course of the Americans of Dutch descent or Swedish descent, who were a distinct minority. The American colonists claimed 'the rights of Englishmen'.
Somehow, recent generations of students seem to have the idea that the colonists thought of the English as alien oppressors, which was not so. The quarrel was a family quarrel, with the differences being over ideas like 'taxation without representation'. So to that extent, the American Revolution was about ideas or principles, but the Alamo was about a distinct people (the Anglo-Protestant American colonists) being under the rule of a very different people, and deprived of their rights as they understood them. There was an element of a culture clash, even if you don't want to admit a racial aspect, to the Texas independence movement.
I personally don't think that many men (or women) will be willing to die for abstract, disembodied principles like 'freedom' or 'liberty'. I think what it comes down to is that men will fight and even die for home, hearth, land, and ultimately, their kin, their people. I think that's true down through the ages, even when there are abstract principles invoked. And men will die for their faith, if that faith is genuine and strong enough.
And that is the crucial issue now; how many people will risk all to fight for abstractions like the 'proposition nation' with its 'freedom and liberty' shibboleths? Not many, I would say, but people will fight or risk harm to protect their families, homes, lands, and their faith.
Since our country has been turned into a 'proposition nation', open to one and all, standing for no particular way of life except 'freedom and equality', then it is no wonder that many people's loyalties have become attenuated. That may be the reason why ''the best lack all conviction'' these days, because why fight for an abstract notion or for a system of government or a government apparatus in a far-off city? What counts to most red-blooded people is their homes, property, friends, family. It's the people (plus the place) which is home to us. That's what we will defend. Anything else is just words on paper.
I have a few kinsmen who died at the Alamo. I am certain that they died in defense not of abstractions, but in defense of their right to live on their land among their people, practicing their faith, on their terms, self-determining. The issue of their right to bear arms was what sparked the ultimate struggle; the Mexican government tried to disarm them, and then the fight began.
Many of today's politically corrected people don't know why old Americans were so attached to their right to bear arms. It is with those arms that a man can secure and protect his home, his land, his family against outlawry and against a despotic government. A disarmed people is an enslaved people. They knew that.
But ultimately, both the Texans and the Revolutionary patriots wanted the right to live peaceably ''under his own vine and fig tree'' as self-determining people, among like neighbors. That is a primal affinity for most healthy people. We can't make these conflicts into a war for abstractions; it was about flesh-and-blood bonds.
And if one believes that they primarily wanted to secure their political rights, what better way to guarantee them than to live among your own people, who share common standards and ideals about how people treat one another, and about just what rights we have as individuals and collectively?
We are told by the open borders zealots that all the millions who are arriving in our country every year are coming because they want ''freedom and liberty''. But it is evident to anybody with eyes and sense that what many of the immigrants consider 'freedom' is not our idea of freedom. What they consider their 'rights' are not necessarily what we as a people have agreed to be our rights. And their assumed 'rights' come into conflict with ours, and the conflicts are insoluble in some cases.
No, our forebears did not fight or die for abstractions and fine-sounding words on parchment; they died for the right to be self-determining, to live and worship as suited them and their ancestors, and (they hoped) their posterity.
It's all about the people, the flesh-and-blood people.
Labels: American History, Ethnopatriotism, National Character, National Sovereignty, Proposition Nation